My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I just finished a spectacular little book of poetry and prose, Apocrypha by Catherynne M. Valente.

Her writing is so disturbingly beautiful, telling of the sorrows of fairy tale witches, struggles between wicked stepmother and daughter, tragic heroes and even the birth of language itself. Apocrypha is just another example of Valente’s brilliant ability to paint gorgeously surreal pictures with the written word.

I don’t understand why the “film” Dungeons & Dragons got made, nor do I understand why Jeremy Irons was in it, nor do I understand why I watched the end in HD.

Let’s say you made a movie that looked kind of like Sin City, but more colorful, yet not nearly as beautiful. You gave the movie a boring story with generally boring characters. If you did those things, you followed the same path as the people who wasted film on The Spirit.

So, Doubt is definitely the flat-out best theatrical film I’ve seen all year. I was really excited over the trailer, but the actual film blew me away.

Based on a stage play of the same name, Doubt takes place in 1964 and is the story of a rather brutal Catholic nun, Sister Aloysius, and the very personable Father Flynn. Sister Aloysius is the principal at a Bronx Catholic school, a school which she runs with an iron-fist. Every single student palpably fears her, and her sister nuns are equally obedient toward her rules. Father Flynn, however, is a rather progressive priest and school teacher. He believes in a warmer, friendlier Catholic Church. Sister Aloysius doesn’t like this one bit, she doesn’t trust his methods, or his motives. So, when she discovers Father Flynn taking a private interest in a young boy, the school’s first and only black student, she immediately decides that the relationship is abusive and cause for Father Flynn’s removal. The crux of the situation is that she has absolutely no proof beyond her personal certainty and the circumstantial, while he ultimately has no proof to refute her.

The film’s such a fascinating examination of faith and the lengths that one will go to in order to protect and justify said faith. It’s also a spectacular metaphor for the fact that life doesn’t always have clear-cut answers, nothing is black or white, but rather endless shades of gray. It makes us look into the idea that morality is a very relative thing.

Meryl Streep is absolutely brilliant as Sister Aloysius, she literally made me tear up, as she delivered her dialogue so perfectly. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is also outstanding as Father Flynn. I could easily see the film again right now.

So, now that I can read real books again, I’ve started Apocrypha by Catherynne M. Valente. It’s a book of poetry and prose, excellent stuff so far.

Valente’s such an artist with the written word, she writes sentences that are simply beautiful no matter the context. Her first novel, The Labyrinth, is honestly one of the most bizarre and gorgeous things I’ve ever read, so I’m pretty sure Apocrypha won’t disappoint. I’m also totally excited about her upcoming novel, Palimpsest, the excerpts I’ve read are spectacular.

Well, I finally did it, I finally completely finished Dune. I successfully hated it from beginning to end. Honestly, my problem isn’t with the story per se, but the prose just killed me, the use of “Presently, he said,” or “He swallowed with a dry throat,” over and over again. It’s just such a flatly written book.

Maybe at 15, a virgin to sci-fi and life in-general I’d have found it brilliant, but at 28 (as of 12/31/08), it just didn’t do anything for me.

Sometimes I stumble upon random little movies on iTunes, I buy them on a whim and hope for the best. I usually have really good luck, Lonesome Jim, Wristcutters: A Love Story, both excellent. Idiocracy, however, was almost as painful as reading Dune. Honestly, I like my Russian-roulette approach to movie buying, it has yet to kill me. انواع البوكر

The Life Before Her Eyes is my most recent spin, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. It’s the story of two high school girls who are confronted by a fellow student gunning his way through the building. He says that he’s only going to kill one of the two best-friends, but they have to decide which. The film then flashes forward to show the life of the surviving girl, a life that slowly unravels. لعبة كريكت

The film is gorgeously shot and well-acted, Uma Thurman playing the guilt-plagued survivor. The story has a twist, and while the twist didn’t particularly surprise me, I don’t at all regret watching. It was definitely worth the random purchase.

Things that are better than Dune:

• Root canals

• Trache changes

• Getting punched in the face while wearing glasses

• Kitty Jesus

• Pink eye

• Communism (dedicated to Celeste)

• The Anti-Christ

• Stale pretzels

• Being raped by woodland critters

• Spontaneous blindness

So, I’m watching Death Race, and while mindless, it’s really rather entertaining. The fast cars, the violence, the over-the-top death and carnage, it’s fun to watch on some bizarre visceral level. I just saw a guy burn to death in his car, another guy impaled by steel beams through his windshield, neither shocked me. It’s all so overblown, to the point hilarity. I can watch almost any crazy violent movie and remain entirely detached. Rob Zombie’s “films,” however, really bother me, but that’s an exception.

Yet, as entertaining as an insanely violent movie may be, I could never watch a real-world Death Race if such a thing existed. Real-world violence is completely different in my head, completely disturbing. I can’t detach from it.

I don’t think liking fictional violence is unhealthy. It’s only unhealthy when a person can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction.

Rarely do I ever hate a book, I usually find something worthwhile in whatever I read. However, I can safely say that I feel nothing but abject hatred toward Dune. It’s the current selection for my little two person book club, and I think I hate it worse than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s powerful bad.

I’m just over halfway through Dune and I’m starting to feel like I’d rather eat glass than finish the other half. كازينو آنلاين It’s that tedious. I wish Paul Atreides would just die in a fire.